7/30/2007

Humanitarian Crisis

IraqPhoto: Iraqi refugees wait to register their names at the U.N. Higher Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) centre in the Douma suburb of Damascus July 19, 2007. Syria hosts more than one million Iraqi refugees who fled their homeland after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. REUTERS/Khaled al-Hariri (SYRIA)

Related NewsLONDON - About 8 million Iraqis — nearly a third of the population — need immediate emergency aid because of the humanitarian crisis caused by the war, relief agencies said Monday.Those Iraqis are in urgent need of water, sanitation, food and shelter, said the report by Oxfam and the NGO Coordination Committee network in Iraq.The report said 15 percent of Iraqis cannot regularly afford to eat, and 70 percent are without adequate water supplies, up from 50 percent in 2003. It also said 28 percent of children are malnourished, compared with 19 percent before the 2003 invasion.